Yes and no. The next best gauge will be seeing the effect a new manager will have on City/Chelsea next season. The easy thing to say right now is that we will but I'm not convinced myself.
My point isn't to make this a showcase defence of Wenger but to encompass all the factors that not only mean the style of play is affected but overall performance levels. I see enough issues with Wenger and club myself but I don't agree just a change of manager is going to be enough. The whole Wenger ten year thing you can keep banging Letters over the head with.
I agree 2 points isn't that significant but is 4? That's the difference for City from this stage last season and yet there's this perception that they've collapsed while failed to capitalise. Truth is we've done marginally better, City have done marginally worse but there's not a whole lot in it either way.
Only Chelsea are significantly different from where they were last year, despite our best efforts to help them
What gives us a chance this year is there's no runaway team.
I don't think a change of manager will be enough either, not from day #1 at least. But it will be something. I don't envisage anything changing while Wenger is here. Bring some fresh ideas in, they may work, fail, be partially successful, absolutely no way of telling. But if a new guy is given proper support and resources then why shouldn't he be able to start correcting some of the issues Wenger can't seem to fix? You have to try before you can know. And Wenger will have to go one day, so what's the difference between today and tomorrow given the whole financial reshuffle is behind us? For those who point at Ferguson and Moyes and the upheaval caused there, firstly that's a different situation. Utd were well on the slide under Ferguson. We're nice and stable, we have a decent squad, plenty for a new guy to work with. Secondly, if we can't take a risk with the manager then what does that mean? Wenger here forever? He's coming up for 20 years. For the last 10 of them he's been churning out the same old stuff on the pitch. The signs are he'll be churning it out for another 5 years. Why would anyone at the club want that, except the greedy pigs at the top who covet the guaranteed financial returns?
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It's pretty simple really, if you sign better players in the position you need to, in our case a striker a DM and I'd sat a CB and bring in a new manager who knows what he's doing and perhaps stop relying on crocks to save your season we will be a better team and better equipped to perform better and win titles and CLs.
It's really not that hard to improve us and make us more successful, it's just that we have a manager who insists of following flawed principles and is more stubborn than a mule and refuses to make the necessary changes, these simple facts make him an average manager IMO, a good manager would be making these simple changes and we would be a much better side for it.
Let's be honest here, Wenger has been living on his reputation for years, once upon a time he apparently revolutioned football, won a few cups and titles....this miraculously all ended when he changed everything about this winning formula to follow some crazy arse idea of building mini Barcelona to improve chances in the CL, the result of this of course was no more titles and less success in the CL.
To this day he still doesn't recognise this and continues with his flawed policies, you couldn't make it up!
Last edited by Özim; 26-01-2016 at 05:43 PM.
This is partly what I've been going over with IBK in the past few pages, in that yes I have problems with Wenger too and I don't disagree a change of manager may be able to fix some of our flaws. That said, he might also create some new ones because let's face it, as fans we're rarely 100% happy and usually find areas to pick at. But as I've been saying, the other factors outside of our control in this league (which I've explained as far as I can now) will remain in place I think and will have just as much of a contributing factor as I believe they are having now. It may sound boring as fuck to place my argument in this grey area but that is where the truth of the matter exists.
But that's why Ferguson's, and unfortunately Maureen's, last title wins were impressive (in different ways). Yes the standard is falling, anyone bar a Sky pundit has to admit that. Yes the mid table and even relegation candidates run a tighter ship tactically, probably having discovered Maureen MkI's Makelelean model as an equaliser. It's negative, congested, it's anti-football 90% of the time and so it's more difficult for technical players to perform and far easier for workhorses to make a mark. Picky refs haven't helped either, blowing up at the slightest hint of contact. Players diving when brushed. The game gets broken to bits. We have a cynical game with a focus on energy and miles run per match. Entertainment has drained, the chavs are praised for parking a bus. All very sad. But Ferguson took his sack of odds and ends and somehow crafted it into a unit that slogged hard enough to win the title. I doubt any other manager could have pulled it off with what he had at his disposal. He found a way, he suited his game to the prevailing conditions and then found an edge. Most unfortunately Maureen did the same but with a group of much more talented individuals, he took the cynicism prevalent in this league and injected it with steroids to raise up the most foul expression of anti-football seen since Wimbledon laughed Liverpool off the pitch in the cup final. But nevertheless, he achieved what he wanted to achieve. I wouldn't want us to do it, but I would like our manager to use all the experience to find his own edge.
But here we have Wenger, insisting nothing needs to change and his ways are still good despite the very essence of the league having changed around his ears. So yes, external factors have considerably modified the challenge. I don't know if our manager is up for that challenge or not because he refuses to accept it and might actually have convinced himself nothing has changed at all. We all know the old clichés, Wenger's teams can't break down a massed defence, Wenger's teams don't like a battle, Wenger's teams overplay, Wenger's tactics are predictable. It's overblown but there's an element of truth to all of it.
Why haven't we replaced Vieira, for example? We've needed that steel for how long now? He doesn't want to do it. He wants Santi Cazorla to battle it out with the Cattermoles. Santi is good enough to sometimes gain the upper hand by fleet of foot and razor passing, but essentially he's another Ozil and should be playing ahead of a sturdy midfield. Wenger has him shoehorned into a position that works if Santi is right on his game and doesn't get kicked in the air too many times. Ramsey should probably be playing there too. And Alexis. And any other number of similar players we've had over the seasons. A load of players for one position, none for another. Players being asked to somehow pull out this ever fleeting pass and move ballet so maybe three times a season we can enjoy an unbelievable goal that wins awards. The rest of the time it's pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, try that ridiculous 2% pass and lose it.
Why can't he mix things up at least? We have some of the fastest players in the league. What's wrong with the ball over the top from time to time. His early teams weren't shy to boot it into space and let Anelka or Henry chase it. It eliminates the predictability, unsettles defenders, keeps the crowd loud. But this tippy tappy shit. Fuck me, it's so frustrating you could smash your head through the screen watching it.
We know the league has changed, we know it. Somebody tell Wenger. Evidently he doesn't know, or doesn't care.
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